There was a lot going on well above and beyond Courtney, the way I entered the situation, which is replacing a member who had died [bassist Kristen Pfaff], shortly after a husband had died. It was just epic in its emotions. Ultimately my years in Hole were very defining on a human-experience level and a priceless lesson in love and compassion. I wouldn't trade it for the world as far as what I learned about people. Not only because of the extreme situations happening within that band but also the amount of traveling we did, the extensive touring around the world, the cultural crossover. And also a social/political, women-in-music situation. When I look back on Hole, the things that are most strong and important to me are the personal defining moments as a human being as well as a women in a male-dominated field. Courtney and I couldn't be more different people, we come from incredibly different backgrounds, manifested in different ways, as artists, as performers, as people [laughs]. But I always felt really aligned with her. Ninety-nine percent of the time we were the only women on that stage on that [Lollapalooza] festival bill. So that's what I take away as the most significant parts of being in that band.

And how about Billy Corgan and Smashing Pumpkins?
As far as Billy, it's simply the best musical lesson of my life. The musical abilities of Billy, Jimmy (Chamberlin), and James (Iha), the three that I played with and at one point during the big arena tour, the farewell tour, with a piano player named Mike Garson, who actually plays on "Father's Grave" and is a legendary collaborator with Bowie [the piano solo on ["Aladdin Sane"] and is a virtuoso avant-garde phenomenon.

The level of musical experiences I had in my year of the Pumpkins are absolutely the most defining — the final lesson in my craft that I needed to go solo. My parents brought me into the world as a living being and these two people [Corgan and Love] brought me into the world of music. Not that I wouldn't have had a life of music without it, but I was going to art school, I was working as a photographer and planning on working as a photographer. Music seemed like such a far-out-there aspiration. At this point music has become so outrageously part of my life experience that I am more centered in music. But at the time I joined Hole when I wanted to finish my art degree, it wasn't the forefront; it was the forefront in my youth-culture love of going to shows and meeting people based on music, but I had a very active life in art school.

In other words, it's become this phenomenal part of my life and those two people basically changed my life. Not many days go by without me thinking of them. They are unique, extreme people and I have mass amounts of respect for them. They are two of the most independent minded people I've met. I consider myself seriously independent in many ways — both my parents were freelancers and independent and raised me to be independent — but those two are lone wolves in different ways. They are really family — we are not in contact on a regular basis and, that happens in extreme relationships, but they are always near in my thoughts and heart.

Trans Am | What Day Is It Tonight? Trans Am Live, 1993 - 2008 Trans Am are distillers of guilty pleasures, mixing fat AOR riffs with sleazy electronic accents and a propulsive attitude typically reserved for arcade soundtracks. What Day Is It Tonight? covers the DC-area band’s 20-year history with high-quality, high-energy live cuts taken from their many tours.

Various Artists | Panama! 3 If you purchase a copy of Soundway’s wonderful Panama! 3 — and you should — you get two things for the price of one. First, this is a carefully curated CD of “Calypso Panameño, Guajira Jazz & Cumbia Típica on the Isthmus 1960-75” that will keep you smiling — and perhaps dancing — for a healthy while.

The Big Hurt: Lambert works it, 50 blows it, Moz ends it ADAM LAMBERT 's spicy AMA performance continues to dominate entertainment headlines, weeks after it first scandalized the nation — but why does America care what a man does with another man in the secluded privacy of the American Music Awards?

Winter warmers Sure, some bands take the easy route and have album releases through the summer, enticing you to shows with back-patio barbecues and all-night rooftop after-parties. In January? Not so much.

Beyond Dilla and Dipset With a semi-sober face I'll claim that hip-hop in 2010 might deliver more than just posthumous Dilla discs, Dipset mixtapes, and a new ignoramus coke rapper whom critics pretend rhymes in triple-entendres.

Various Artists | Casual Victim Pile: Austin 2010 The notion that regional musical flavors exist independently in American cities is quickly becoming an archaic truism, seeing as how the world really is a stage these days, at least in the digital sense.

Review: In Search of Beethoven Phil Grabsky's exhaustive documentary doesn't exactly dispel any stereotypes about Beethoven's being a shaggy genius prone to rages.

FRED HERSCH TRIO AT SCULLERS | March 01, 2013 Fred Hersch's output as a composer includes an orchestrated setting of poems from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass as well as other art-song fare for singers.

THIS SPRING'S JAZZ &AMP; WORLD MUSIC SHOWS | February 28, 2013 The saxophonist Chris Potter started drawing attention when he joined the group of legendary bebop trumpeter Red Rodney as an 18-year-old Manhattan School of Music student.